Yesterday, we saw a divide emerge between the Conservatives and Reform UK on the issue of welfare reform. It is understood that the Labour Government is proposing to lift the cap on eligibility for extra Universal Credit payments per child, currently limited to two children. Lifting that cap would be an extraordinarily irresponsible decision given the state of the public finances. Yet the Sunday Telegraph reported:
“The Reform leader will commit to ending the two-child cap, which was introduced by the Conservatives in 2017 to cut the benefits bill.
“A Reform source said: “We’re against the two-child cap and we’d go further on winter fuel by bringing the payment back for everyone. That’s already outflanking Labour.”
By contrast, Kemi Badenoch made clear in broadcasts yesterday that the Conservatives favoured keeping the cap.
In April alone, the Government borrowed another £20.2 billion. The populist demand to “tax the rich” is not a viable option. It would just prompt more of them to scarper. This year, the welfare budget is £316.1 billion. It’s due to go up by around £70 billion in real terms over the next five years. The policy agenda should not be about how to increase welfare spending, but how it can be brought under control.
The benefits restriction was proposed by George Osborne. The case for it was that “families on benefits face the same financial choices about having children as families who are supporting themselves solely through work.” It has been applied since 2017. It is still an eminently reasonable case. If you are on benefits, you get an extra £3,500 if you have a child, a bit less extra for a second child. Then that’s it. Imagine the trap of welfare dependency of having several children, with each extra one carrying a welfare bounty of over £3,000. How realistic would it be switch to work? Then getting a job becomes an alien concept and worklessness cascades down the generations. What a false, misguided form of “compassion” to engineer.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith had earlier said:
“When you look at families across the board across all incomes, you find the vast majority make decisions about the number of children they have, the families they want, based on what they think they can afford.”
“People who are having support from welfare are often freed from that decision. You need to cut your cloth in accordance with what capabilities and finances you have.”
Has that basic case for fairness and responsibility changed over the past decade? The public doesn’t think so. A YouGov poll showed 60 per cent backed keeping it, with only 28 per cent favouring abolition.
What is Nigel Farage thinking? Just when many erstwhile Conservative Party supporters had decided that Reform UK was now the outlet for proper Conservatism this happens. Reform UK join Labour, the Lib Dems and the Green Party in hurtling towards national insolvency. It fall to the Conservatives to offer some hard truths about the need to pay our way.
There is an important caveat. The Conservatives are the party of the family. It is right that couples should consider whether they can afford to have children and to meet that responsibility. But it is a terrible situation that so many struggle to be able to afford to do so.
Miriam Cates has said:
“In the 1960s, British women each had an average of around 2.6 children. Now it is fewer than 1.6. For the first time ever last year, half of women reached their 30th birthday without having a child. There simply is no future if we don’t reverse this trend.”
Why are so many people postponing getting married? Postponing having children? Having fewer children than they would like? It is primarily because of the housing shortage. The planning system which constrains the building of homes also prevents children from being born. How many more dreams must go unfulfilled until the Town and Country Planning Act of 1947 is repealed?
The heavy tax burden does not help either, of course. The state is thwarting the ambitions of many to start families. Building strong, self-reliant communities means addressing that. The state seeking to hand out subsidies to counter the harm it has done will only compound the fiscal and demographic calamity we face. It would also be morally flawed.
The clear leadership Badenoch has taken on this issue reminds us of what the Conservative Party is for.
